misogyny means hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women. It carries an Arena rating of 1650, earned across 21 head-to-head judged battles.
Among words judged in Lexicurio's Arena, misogyny ranks #207 of 17,127 for Words That Escaped Their Books, #2,164 of 17,138 for Most Incisive Words, #2,294 of 17,131 for Scariest Words, #2,959 of 17,132 for Most Betrayed by Its Sound.
misogyny is pronounced /mɪˈsɒd͡ʒ.ɪ.ni/.
Why “misogyny” is a great word
Hatred of, contempt for, or ingrained prejudice against women. From Ancient Greek μισέω (miséō, “to hate”) + γυνή (gunḗ, “woman”), via the compound μισογύνης (misogúnēs, “woman-hater”) and the abstract noun μισογυνία (misogunía); first attested in English in the 1650s. Unlike “sexism”—a broader, often structural system of discrimination—or “philogyny,” its direct conceptual opposite, misogyny is the visceral, corrosive kernel of personal animus. It is the sneer in a public square, the cold calculus of a passed-over promotion, and the quiet dread in a darkened hallway—the oldest form of terror, systematized into culture and enforced as a quiet, violent provocation.
Etymology
From Ancient Greek μισογυνία (misogunía) and μισογύνης (misogúnēs, “woman hater”), from μισέω (miséō, “I hate”) + γυνή (gunḗ, “woman”). By surface analysis, miso- + -gyny.
noun
- Hatred of, contempt for, or prejudice against women.e.g.“Although she argues against a simplistic conflation of types of prejudice, she suggests that misogyny is typically present in both narcissistic and obsessive forms of anti-Semitic prejudice.” — 1999, Joanne Marie Greer, David O. Moberg, Research in the Social Scientific Study of Religion, →ISBN, page 29:
Definitions & examples from Wiktionary (CC BY-SA 3.0).
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